


so low, so slow

by kingandqueeninthenorth



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-06
Updated: 2013-09-06
Packaged: 2017-12-25 19:42:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/956900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kingandqueeninthenorth/pseuds/kingandqueeninthenorth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She wishes she could give Robb a son. He would have auburn hair and clear blue eyes, and he would be untouched by tragedy. The only lines in his faces would be from laughing, his youth palpable. They could have a boy, an heir, and then a baby girl.</p>
            </blockquote>





	so low, so slow

She sees herself in the Frey girl.

Roslin is a bargaining chip. Her father tossed her to the wolves in order to stake a claim to the newly recognized Northern royalty. The King in the North agreed to the marriage as a way to gain access to a bridge. Roslin’s life is only worth whatever can be bought with it.

Sansa knows the feeling. She had been a pawn once. But that was when she was a soft thing with feathers and a head full of dreams. That was when she thought that casualties of war only meant death and loss of limb, rather than childhood dreams and innocence.

Seeing the Frey girl wander the castle with a lost expression makes her stomach twist. There’s no place for her in the vastness of Winterfell, or so it would seem.

Sansa can’t help but reach out to her, and befriend the girl who is to marry her brother.

—-

Sansa watches the two of them together. Roslin is shy and timid, and her brother has little interest in making casual conversation, so they are a quiet pair. Roslin stares at Robb through her lashes and blushes when she catches his eye. Robb gives her brief, fleeting smiles that don’t touch his eyes in return.

“Winterfell is so beautiful,” the girl ventures. “It’s everything I dreamed of and so much more.”

The bright, hopeful look in Roslin’s eyes fills Sansa with pity. Roslin has yet to take notice of her husband’s solemn nature. War and bloodshed killed the boy in Robb, leaving a hollow shell of a man to marry the sweet girl from the Twins.

Robb chews his food slowly, as though it has no taste. He doesn’t even seem to hear his wife to be.

“We do so hope you’ll be happy here,” Sansa says with a smile. She gives Robb a pointed look, hoping to elicit a response, but he hardly seems to be able to see beyond his meal. “Have you been to the godswood? It’s lovely in the fall.”

Roslin shakes her head. “I haven’t.”

“Perhaps Robb could take you.”

Robb’s head lifts at the sound of his name, but he seems to register little else. He glances from Sansa to his wife, and then back to his sister before swallowing hard.

Sansa manages a small smile. “You’d like to take Roslin to the godswood, wouldn’t you?”

He gives a distracted nod and goes back to eating. “Yes, of course.”

He is far from the man Roslin expected him to be, and it reads plain as day on her face. The light fades from her eyes, along with her smile, and she looks down at the table.

Sansa considers Walder Frey’s daughter, and she is reminded of a long time ago when she too dreamt of a faraway place and a royal husband.

_She will be disappointed, just as I was,_ Sansa thinks. He fingers trail along her forearm beneath the sleeve of her gown, and they find a swollen welt.  _But she is far better off._

Her brother is a tired man, who reeks of blood and death and destruction, but he is no monster.

 —-

Months pass and yet Roslin is as slender as the day she arrived at Winterfell.

It isn’t for lack of trying. Sansa hears their efforts late at night when sleep defies her, and many times she has seen Robb slip into the hall to wander the castle afterwards. Her brother rarely sleeps, and when he does, it never seems to be at night.

He has the look of a man twice his age, and often appears troubled.

—-

“I needed that bridge,” he says, when the candles have been blown out and the air is heavy with a thousand questions.

“I need no explanation.” She has no right to question him anymore. He is a king.

“I married her,” he continues. “Because it was required of me. And I had hoped for an heir, because that is required of me as well. I am doing my duty because it has to be done. ”

She hears their father in him then.

“I’ve done my duty by her. I’ve tried to give her a son. I’ve tried a thousand times,” he says. “I’m tired of trying.”

“Maybe she is barren,” Sansa offers as gently as she can. She isn’t sure if the suggestion will make him feel better or worse, but it’s better than giving him no explanation at all.

“A blessing in disguise, perhaps. I’m not entirely sure I want a child with half the blood of a Frey.”

She has heard the same excuse over and over again, and the truth is more evident each time it passes his lips. Her brother may not want a child with the Frey girl, but he certainly wants an heir. She knows the lack of one is the reason for many of the lines that crease his young face. Roslin may very well be barren, but it could be something else as well. A problem that lies within Robb.

“It certainly doesn’t help that I have no appetite.”

She knows he isn’t speaking of meat and mead. Sansa speaks past the lump in her throat. “No appetite?”

“I have an appetite,” he murmurs, his words echoing in the darkness. “Just not for her.”

She can’t explain why her mouth goes dry.

—-

_Bound by duty._ Her brother does everything that is required of him. He tends to the small folk, manages the Northern affairs, and keeps all of Winterfell’s accounts in order.

Sansa has duties of her own. Roslin falls short in the responsibilities of a queen, and Sansa is left to fulfill them. She hears the troubles of the small folk when Robb’s eyes wander at council. It is she who makes the decisions, she who comforts Roslin when the tears come fast and heavy as she speaks of fertility tonics that the maester has given her.

Roslin tries, that much Sansa is certain of. But her shortcomings all are a result of what she cannot change. The most basic ability given to a woman is the one she doesn’t seem to possess. From that, all her insecurities stem. The one thing she can’t change sews doubt in her mind, and leaves her attempts at all other tasks half hearted and unsure.

So Sansa does what she can to keep her brother’s kingdom together. She does what Roslin can’t, which, of late, seems to be everything.

She watches as Roslin tries yet another tonic. She swallows it without complaint and the maester gives her a reassuring smile.

Sometimes the concoctions makes Roslin sick, and other times they make her so fatigued that she is confined to bed. But she isn’t on trying everything, on any possible solution. Sansa often finds herself wondering if it’s worth the poor girl’s trouble.

_I could do it,_ Sansa thinks as Roslin settles back in bed.  _I could give him a son._

That is not her place. It isn’t a  _sister’s_ place.

Where do her duties as a sister end when a king is concerned?

—-

Robb sits with his head in his hands and his elbows on his knees in her solar. His back is bent, and in the shadowy light of the chamber she can see how his skin is scarred and puckered from wounds taken in battle. Her brother is a real warrior, like from the songs.

No sweet melody can romanticize his pain.

Her hands glide over the scars of war, feeling the way his suffering has pressed into him. So she presses herself against him, hoping to push the pain away, and he presses into her without prelude or sweet words or some useless charade of romance.

There is nothing romantic about the way he pushes into her from behind, or the way his hands dig into her as he pulls her back against him. But she welcomes a pressure that doesn’t suffocate her the way their shared pain does, and she feels her heart quicken when his hands find their way lower than her hips.

She gives into the feeling just before he does, and they don’t look at each other once he pulls away from her.

—-

 Some strange sense of love bleeds into their nights together, whether it be from the loyalty they have to one another or the blood that runs through both their veins. His kisses start at her cheek and gradually move to her lips, her neck, her breasts, and then lower and lower until she forgets that she is anything but nerve endings and raw, exposed skin.

And eventually he looks at her when he’s inside her, his eyes saying all the things he doesn’t and never will.

She wonders if he’s like this with Roslin. Detached and yet present, eventually finding his way to where she is with clumsy movements and a sense of urgency. Robb is rushed, as though he is losing time to some invisible force.

But he always finds his way to her.

—-

Sansa stares into her moon tea.

She wishes she could give Robb a son. He would have auburn hair and clear blue eyes, and he would be untouched by tragedy. The only lines in his faces would be from laughing, his youth palpable. They could have a boy, an heir, and then a baby girl.

Their son would be the spitting image of his father, and protect his sister and defend her against the beasts in the night. She could sneak into his bed when the nightmares came and he could protect her honor with a wooden sword.

Their daughter could dream of chivalry and knights the way Sansa once did, but she would know that life is not a song. She would be strong and fierce, with the steel heart that he mother had grown with time. She would be everything that Sansa should have been.

She thinks of how Roslin swallows mouthfuls of tea in hopes of children, and of how she herself must swallow her own tea to keep the possibility of children away.

She could push the tea away and go to Robb, bring him inside her and wait for her belly to swell. She could give him an heir, another reason to forget his past torment. She could give him a daughter, and give their son something to live for.

But she does her duty, and drinks the tea with a heavy heart.


End file.
